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Car accidents can be the result of many things: Excessive speed, weather conditions, vehicle malfunction, a blow-out or even just plain bad luck.

Sometimes careless driving might be the culprit. And with three daughters having moved into the driving age, I’ve always been afraid that lack of care and attention by them, or “the other guy,” might lead to a fender bender, or worse.

Careless driving can be defined as thus: When a driver operates a motor vehicle without due care or attention, thus putting themselves or others in danger.

You now may ask: If the consequences are so great, why do so many people lack this care and attention?

Well, according to my middle daughter, Natalie, the answer is simple. “Drivers are tormented by two seductive demons which must be constantly battled.”

She refers to this troublesome duo as “Distraction and Impatience.”

“What do you mean by that, Natalie?” I asked, after a nerve-racking mishap she was involved in a while back.

“Distraction can be anything from a cellphone to a cheeseburger to a crossword puzzle,” she said. “The fuel of impatience can range from a broken-down RV, an impending meeting or a little old lady pushing a grocery cart across the street. But my incident involved parking. Careless parking … on a hill.”

The details of Natalie’s adventure in careless parking came to me in the form of an account she wrote for an English class at Bishops University, where she had been wrapping up a degree in Biology and Psychology.

“It was about one in the morning and I was driving through the empty streets of Halifax hunting for something to drink. So I pulled onto the top of a side street, a formidable hill with a series of stop signs that eventually intersects Connaught Avenue—one of the main arteries of Halifax. About half-a-block down, my eyes fell onto a glowing beacon of nourishment: Daily Treats Convenience.

“There, past the colourful chip racks and bins of pepperoni, beyond the solitary clerk unloading cartons of cigarettes, in my mind’s eye I could see it: The Gatorade fridge. I could feel its icy breath on my face; I could taste the diluted fruitiness washing across my tongue.

“In a trance, I pulled up in front of the store. I turned the engine off and practically fell out of the car. I did not put the car in park. I did not align the front wheels. I did not pull up the emergency break. No, I was following the siren song of Distraction and Impatience, amalgamated into one hideous super demon: A bottle of Gatorade.

“After I had taken a few steps toward the store, a loitering old man caught my attention. There was something happening over my shoulder that he was watching with a fixated curiosity. That was when I turned around and saw Mum’s Volkswagen Jetta, quiet as a mouse, rolling down the street and into the night.

“In biology class, you learn about how during moments of intense stress — like seeing a tiger chasing you, or when your empty car is about to run a stop sign — your adrenal glands secret a hormone called adrenalin, which targets various organs and tissues of the body. Blood is diverted away from the digestive tract and pumped into the brain and skeletal muscles, giving the animal hyper vigilance and increased strength. The pupils dilate to let in more light, enhancing vision. The heart begins to palpitate, and respiration increases to maximize the intake of oxygen. In short, you become a super human being.

“And so, with my super vision and super human strength, I ran.

“The car was speeding up exponentially. I caught up to it and threw open the driver’s door. At this point I actually grabbed the side of the car, half believing I could stop a 3,500-pound piece of metal on wheels. It didn’t work. I was now running at full speed, and realized that my brain was going to have to solve this one. I decided I had two options which I had to carry out within the next two seconds: The bad-ass option or the cautious one.

“In the bad-ass option, I dive head first onto the driver’s seat and below the steering wheel, push down the brake with my hand and stop the car dead in its tracks. In the cautious one, I stick my hand into the car and turn the wheel, setting the car off course and into a curbside parked car four metres away.

“I should mention that I’ve never been much of a bad-ass really.

“The metal on metal was deafening.

“An hour later a crowd had formed to see the accident between two cars with no one inside them. I had totalled the front of a young woman’s new car — not to mention the Jetta — and she would have to cancel an important business trip to P.E.I. the next morning. The damage cost Mum’s insurance company over $5,000 dollars (with a $500 deductible from me), and the premiums went up by 33 per cent for the next seven years. If the car had not been set off course, it would have run three stop signs and straight into the four lanes of Connaught Avenue.”

“Never underestimate the powers of distraction and impatience.”

So what do I say to my middle daughter after a confession like that, other than, “Be careful, Nat, there are plenty of potholes along the roads of life.”

Follow Garry on Twitter:@DrivenMind99

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